Letting of office space climbed by 4.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2011, a report from commercial real estate firm Savills stated.
Berlin in particular has seen major take-up. This is in part due to a number of major letting transactions like the 29,500 square metres of office space leased by BlmA.
“The remaining four markets saw a successful fourth quarter too”, said Robert Kellershohn, Director of Office Agency at Savills and responsible for oversight of the company’s office agency operations in Germany.
“In overall terms, about 2.68 million square metres of office space in the five locations attracted new occupiers in 2010. Hence take-up rose by approximately 31 per cent compared to 2009.”
Düsseldorf showed an increase in take-up of 93 per cent year-on-year, and Frankfurt saw take-up go up 39 per cent. Germany’s second-largest city, Hamburg, saw a rise of 30 per cent.
The German economy, Europe’s largest, remains relatively strong and is largely responsible for driving the Eurozone recovery. Germany’s mainly export-driven economy has been able to recover from the financial crisis much more quickly than many of its neighbours.
In 2010, the German economy grew by 3.6 per cent, and its unemployment rate is continuing to fall, mainly due to the country’s sophisticated social safety net and its ‘kurzarbeit’ scheme, which prevented mass unemployment in favour of shortened hours.
Germany’s Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle recently said that the country’s economy would do better than expected this year.
The economy will grow by 2.6 per cent this year according to predictions. In January, growth of 2.3 per cent was predicted. However, in 2012, the economy is forecast to grow by only 1.8 per cent.
Editor’s notes:
In 2022, the total take-up of office space in Germany was 3.4 million square metres.
This was distributed across the 8 key cities in the following way:
German City | Office Space Take-Up in 2022 (Square Metres) |
Berlin | 773,000 |
Munich | 746,000 |
Hamburg | 554,000 |
Frankfurt | 472,000 |
Cologne | 336,000 |
Düsseldorf | 291,000 |
Essen | 133,000 |
Leipzig | 130,000 |
Total | 3,435,000 |
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in June 2023, the German economy was expected to stagnate in 2023 and grow by 1.3 per cent in 2024.
Office space take-up in Germany’s 8 key cities totalled 2.7 million square metres in 2025, representing a 1.4 per cent increase over 2024’s figure.
This was distributed in the following way:
German City | Office Space Take-Up in 2025 (Square Metres) |
Frankfurt | 611,000 |
Munich | 581,000 |
Berlin | 486,000 |
Hamburg | 401,000 |
Cologne | 250,000 |
Düsseldorf | 218,000 |
Leipzig | 85,000 |
Essen | 68,000 |
Total | 2,700,000 |